Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Holocaust. Perished in the Shoah. The Loss of a Czech Family 1941-45. These Individuals Lived.

Holocaust. A Family Accounting

Genocide Individualized; Not Just "Group"

The European branch of Czech Family A.
.All perished in the Holocaust

Except One: The Survivor

.I. Yad VashemII. The Family A - GrandfatherIII. The Family B - Grandmother.....................................................................................

The Final Solution, architect: Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrict, Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, see new novel HHhH (English translation of HHhH -- Himmler's brain was Heydrich) by Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor, at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/books/review/hhhh-a-novel-by-laurent-binet.html. How could any of this happened. Find out the mindset, the courses of action and inaction. In 1946, at Nuremberg, German Chief of Staff, Keitel, said that in 1938 the Reich would not have attacked Czechoslovakia if the West had supported Prague. HHhH at p.80.

Here, we are tracking the members of the European branch of an entire Czech family, perished in the Holocaust, the Shoah, according to records and the testimonial source laid out here. This is not offered with the precision of a geneology, but to demonstrate this other truth: That horrendous events presented as crowds can fade. Memory, and respect, require individuals. The danger is objectifying those individuals, like specimens, turning what had been individuals into a thing to be examined. No. Not right. Keep it Family A, B, surname C. This family is one example among many. Individuals in this family were sent to many ghettoes and concentration-extermination or slave-labor camps, as listed.

The Jewish tradition is not ours, but the point about mindsets here, leading to genocides and killings, or at the least elsewhere, extreme exclusions, is not limited to one religious or ethnic group.See FN 1

A. Source and process: Yad Vashem Central Database. This is part of an ongoing memorial and historical documentation effort by a large institution-complex dedicated to that purpose. Yad Vashem collects records and other evidence of the Holocaust, known as the Shoah in Hebrew. Victims' names are part of that work, and are coming online. Yad Vashem receives information, coordinates, and publishes. See ://www.yadvashem.com.

B. Clearinghouse and coordinator. This is one source among others. Information may be as a Testimonial from someone who knew or had a relationship with the missing person. Yad Vashem provides a form; and then cross-references to lists from the Third Reich:

1. prisoners on the transports to the camps or a ghetto;
2. inmates at the camps.

There may be no cross-reference at all. The person is just lost, no conclusion as to death. Or, remote as it may be, the person indeed got out, found money, passage to somewhere, and went, without leaving a trace, or contacting anyone thereafter. People still hope.

C. Testimonials: This is personal good faith information, by identified people. At least, if there is no Nazi record, the Testimonial is there to say that this individual lived.

If the last Holocaust record had been that the person had been on a transport or inmate list, there will be an entry by Yad Vashem of presumed death in the summary paragraph as you do the search. The entry will speak with the person's first name. That, in effect, personalizes the entry and lifts it out of mere objective administration detail. Then come the words, most of the time: "Perished in the Shoah;" or "Perished;" where the camp list at liberation did not include the person's name. Jana perished in the Shoah. Karel perished in Majdanek, Camp.

D. Survivors. Victims who lived are not included in the database. Their history in the Shoah is their story to tell, if they so choose; and is not the focus of Yad Vashem's database. Yad Vashem welcomes those stories, and evidence, however. The entire memorial effort is ongoing, and huge.

E. Memorials and historical record. First, do a Testimonial if you know of someone, and do not see it in the database. Second, keep looking for a person's records at Yad Vashem. New data comes online.

Records also vary in spellings and data - a German making notes of a person speaking in Czech, when there are hundreds in that line, may vary widely. The listing may be under something not anticipated. Yad Vashem. See ://www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/ See also ://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Vashem.html; and http://www.youtube.com/user/YadVashem#p/a

Kaufering, DE - subcamp of Dachau, near Munich, see ://www.scrapbookpages.com/Dachauscrapbook/DachauLiberation/KauferingIVLiberation.html

Litzmannstadt, Lodz PL - see http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/bibliography/?lang=en&content=lodz_ghetto (American Holocaust Museum material. Did they get it right?). The annual commemoration of the liquidation of the infamous Lodz Ghetto us pending: the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, in Poland. See ://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3606390.stm/ and http://auschwitztourguide.com/andrzej-strzelecki-the-deportation-of-jews-from-the-lodz-ghetto-2/

Raasika, Harjumaa, Estonia. Raasiku is a Parish, Harju is a county, see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raasiku_Parish. Is the identification here as a hub in Estonia, with further transports elsewhere, such as Vaivara, the largest Estonian concentration camp, at ://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Vaivara.html; or elsewhere in Estonia

1. Adolf A
Married Ema? See see entry, Hanna C (C here signifies a name by marriage), name comes up in later search for Eva A*)
Probably deceased before the Holocaust?
Nothing found in Yad Vashem,
Adolph or Adolf
Not in Prague of Pilsen databases
No Testimonial form
No record listings.

Ema A
Nothing found (probably deceased at the time, since Adolf had married Jana B, and both were probably deceased by the time of the Holocaust?)

1. Jana B A
Probably deceased by the time of the Holocaust?
No record in Yad Vashem for that spelling
A/k/a Yana, see 3.2
No record
With son Ernest born 1896, she would be born, say,
1876?
No Testimonial form
No listings.

3.5. Martha A
See a Marta C a/k/a C' a/k/a A'
Prague base
Housewife
No birthdate
Testimony page by Alfred
But he identifies her as his niece
(is this a daughter of Martha, his sister?)
Conclusion of Yad Vashem:
Perished

Now? No more Jews. See ://www.radio.cz/en/article/43039/. One synagogue, the Front Synagogue, is now used by the Hussites, a protestant reformer-origins religious group. The other, the Rear Synagogue, was used as a storehouse by the Germans, still has Jewish writing on the walls from earlier years, some talk of rehab, but the conversation moves quickly to the big basilica now also World Heritage.

........................................................

FN 1The Lodz Ghetto. Litzmannstadt Ghetto.

Issue: Do the extremes of that generation's groups in power recur: Are there resurgences of those who target other religious and ethnic and distinguishable groups as "Other".

Mindset. At that time, it was Jews, Gypsies, the handicapped, the Orthodox in some places, etc. Does that exclusion mindset make the "Other" so "Not One of Us" that they must be against us. If they are against us, then we can conduct killing and recriminations, justified by our projections of "evil", the Other as expendable. Do Inclusives need watchfulness in every country, every day. Look around at a family gathering this year. This tracking-site is your family in Year-Future, perhaps, if those whose sense of self requires exclusion, denigration, and removal of others from their path. It depends on who exerts what power, and succeeds. Is that so.